FML
by kakang
Summary: (10:38 am) fuck my life.
1. Chapter 1

**MIKAN SAKURA **never considered herself religious. But certain circumstances led her to pray like a devoted follower to every deity and supreme being her sloppy research skills managed to gather over the vast virtual expanse of Google.

The news had been unexpected.

"_Oh my god_," she exclaims in a stage whispher, bursting into the room after a short trip to the mailbox under her father's orders. "It's _here._"

She feels faint, having herself unprepared for the inevitable confrontation. She feels an overwhelming need to move out of her own body and inhabit some other entity only to escape the dreadful feeling that's flooding her system with too much adrenaline. There was no stopping her thoughts from running rampant and turning her head into absolute chaos. Had she somehow forgotten results were supposed to come out today?

Her parents abruptly drop their respective devices and exchange questioning glances. "What are you talking about, darling?" her mother inquires kindly, tone patronizing and Mikan was certain she was just about ready to _die_.

"The _letter_," she frantically waves the envelope she'd been gripping for emphasis, the golden seal of Alice University shines brightly against the piercing glare of the sunlight seeping through the huge glass windows of their dining room.

Her mother gasps and instantly reaches for her father's hand across the table before giving her an encouraging nod.

The room suddenly feels so small.

She swallows the ball of anxiety and channels her inner Gryffindor spirit—she belongs to that particular house after all, _Pottermore_ had said so—and opens the letter despite her visibly shaking fingers. She feels oxygen exiting her lungs and heart about ready to jump out of her throat as she takes in the information at hand.

"Well?" her mother probes unsurely after a while of silence, unable to control her nerves any longer.

Mikan finally looks up from the letter, her face contorted as her brain slowly digested its contents, allowing her parents to suffer another moment of torture.

"Sweetheart," she hears her father begin to say, clearing his throat.

She blinks, the fog slowly clearing as her distorted emotions begin to unravel and she feels like every fiber of her being is vibrating, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she reads the words over and over again, her fingers trembling under the pressure of her hold on the paper and stomach curling in on itself at the very thought of every possible outcome, and she feels a distinct shift from where she's standing as if the universe had promptly decided to rearrange itself and everything suddenly falls into place, like a piece finally completing a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle she'd been anxious to finish and she doesn't realize she'd stop breathing until—

She blinks again.

She breathes, and—

"I got in."

* * *

(9:24 am) _HOTARU_

(9:24 am) _AHHHHHHHH_

(9:24 am) _OH MY GOD_

(9:24 am) _!_

(9:25 am) _**jesus christ**_

(9:25 am) _**what do u want**_

(9:25 am) _I GOT IN_

(9:26 am) _can u believe it_

(9:26 am) _!_

(9:27 am) _**I most certainly cant**_

(9:27 am) _IKR_

(9:28 am) _OMG_

(9:28 am) _shit I almost forgot _

(9:28 am) _have u checked ur results yet_

(9:29 am) _**yea**_

(9:29 am) _omg_

(9:29 am) _!_

(9:29 am) _did u get in_

(9:30 am) _**dont be insulting**_

(9:30 am) _OMG_

(9:31 am) _DSDKJDJKH_

(9:31 am) _!_

(9:31 am) _gtg tweet this shit_

(9:32 am) _**idc**_

(9:33 am) _**oh**_

(9:33 am) _**and btw**_

(9:33 am) _**this conversation is charged to your account**_

* * *

It's during the night before she's bound to leave for Alice University when Mikan came to realize the full gravity of her situation.

_Holy fucking shit_ she'd been an utter fool failing to see the whole landscape. Perhaps she suffered from a momentary lapse of judgment, her euphoria hindering her from fully comprehending the consequences entailed upon having been accepted.

It isn't until she's completely gotten over her bliss when the weight of her admission has finally sink in and she's suddenly overwhelmed with apprehension as she lay on her bed that night, distraught and drowning in thoughts of dread and worry causing havoc within the confines of her mind.

She panics, realizing in abject horror, the possibility of spending the rest of her college years feeling miserable in the highly regarded university whilst drowning herself with caffeine in the middle of the night, struggling and eventually failing to reach the university's ridiculously high standards while the rest of the student body lay fast asleep because they're innately brilliant and she isn't and Hotaru Imai would be too busy making history as a natural born genius and would never provide her some necessary assistance in understanding complex equations without a sum of her kidneys and an extra eyeball for imposing on her.

Not to mention her fucking coping mechanisms are absolute _shit_.

Upgraded mathematics would be the death of her, and even if her three brain cells could manage to survive the assault of those demonic numbers and formulas, being stuck with an obnoxiously loud roommate who'd pressure her into nightouts and manipulate her into braiding each other's hair while coercing her to admit the name of her crush will surely be her impending doom.

She's going to _die_.

One way or another, she's certain she's going to die.

* * *

**A/N. idek if its relevant but for what its worth im having a terrible post-grad existential crisis and i /not surprisingly/ miss bitching about uni on twitter so im putting all that energy in writing a gakuen alice college au thats absolutely NOT loosely based on my miserable... shitty... monotonous uni experience... this is a REPOST btw lol i sort of evacuated from my other acc for personal reasons n deleted errythang from there soo00**


	2. Chapter 2

The trip to Alice University had been painful.

Mikan is convinced her life span has decreased by about fifteen to twenty years max due to her mother's insistent talking down on her as if she's still a child, as if they weren't driving to where she will be attending university at that very moment.

She fights the urge to roll her eyes every time her mother would remind her for the umpteenth time of a certain item in her infinite list of _Do's_ and _Don'ts_. She wants to tell her she's got it all memorized with her talking about it over and over again like a broken cassette but fears being subjected to a much longer scolding regarding her impertinence so she shuts her mouth.

She bets she'd be deaf by the time they arrive at their destination.

She hadn't gone deaf when they finally did though, but she can feel her ears bleeding from within and she blames her mother for it.

It was one of the most painful rides she had to endure, with her earphones confiscated alongside her mother's inability to be silent for even just a second. It was absolutely _brutal. _She's tired and wants a moment of peace but as she looks out the window, she's blessed with a new set of conflicting and unsettling emotions.

She watches, with growing fear and trepidation, the chaos ensuing around her.

"Well, this is it." she hears her father say as he successfully parks the car.

Her mother, the lovely menace, turns her body halfway around the passenger seat and Mikan glares at her with every fiber of her being.

"Remember what I said—"

"_Mom_," Mikan interjects exasperatedly. "I can assure you, I've successfully internalized the whole thing by the third repeat."

Her mother merely rolls her eyes before she reaches out to hold her daughter's hand. "It'll be fine." she gives her a comforting squeeze and before Mikan could object, both her parents steps out of the vehicle and begins unloading her belongings, leaving her to deal with her own anxiety.

She sits there for a while, contemplating about her life and her choices and whether she made a mistake by accepting the offer because she hadn't really thought this through. Not really. Everything had been spontaneous and a product of series of _YOLO motherfuckers_. Because filling in an application form for Alice University had been done out peer pressure, and after taking the entrance exam, she decided it was out of the question. She isn't brilliant, and only brilliant people are allowed to attend Alice University.

_Yet_, in spite of all that and perhaps due to her idiotic tendency to become wholly dependent on her devil incarnate best friend and, well, for the sake of _her_ ego, she still went through the hassle of devoting time and effort to pray for the odds to be in her favor, and she hadn't expected every deity and supreme being to answer her prayers because they aren't supposed to be_ real_ and seeing all these people with their families makes her want to crawl back into her mother's womb because maybe, _maybe_, she fucked up and she's not above admitting she's partly at fault for her lack of discernment, and crowds can be extremely overwhelming sometimes and—

There's a knock on the window.

She turns and sees her mom raising her eyebrow at her.

She hears the faint bustling noise from the outside and groans. She resolutely shakes her head.

Her mother crosses her arms over her chest and gave her a _look_—one that challenged her to defy when there's no room for defiance_._

Mikan sighs in defeat, scared for her dear life if she refuse to submit, and scoots over to the other side of the car, reluctantly opening the door. Drawing in a deep breath, she steps out quickly before she changes her mind and decides to drive the damn thing home herself.

It's noisy outside, and she feels an intermingling surge of sudden excitement, which surprised her a bit, but mostly uneasiness overrun her senses. There's a monotonous voice speaking through the speakers that reminds Mikan too much of her best friend. Mishmash of chattering and footsteps hitting the pavement envelops her and she regrets having to take her solitude for granted.

"I want to go home," she finally says.

Her father laughs heartily at her misery and pulls her into his arms. "Welcome to college, sweetheart. It sucks."

* * *

The freshman dormitories are located on the campus grounds, surrounding the beautiful main courtyard area and are closest to the main campus. It is gender segregated, planted alternately between male and female dorms. In each building, there are sixteen standardize large rooms, and a common area with a television set. Each space consists of a private bath and arranged to be shared by two students max. Mikan has no idea who her roommate is but she surely wouldn't be living with Hotaru if the assigned number in her letter is anything to go by.

Mikan sighs, raking her fingers through her chestnut tresses and rolls the sleeves of her jumper before she picks up one of her boxes and begins walking to where her room is supposed to be located.

Her thoughts drifted naturally and she had been too engrossed with her own musings to really pay attention to where she's heading when she feels her shoulder collide with something solid. She snaps out of her retrieve and automatically turns to apologize. However, whatever generic apology she has readied dies at the tip of her tongue when she finds herself staring back at a pair of mesmerizing crimson orbs.

Her body stops functioning for a second and she stares and stares and _holy fucking shit_—

She blushes furiously, much to her embarrassment and miraculously manages to utter a small apology amid the wild beating in her chest—thank god for small blessings really that its scientifically impossible for hearts to just leap right out of their throat—before she casually turns around and resumes her pace, gripping her box tightly and not daring to glance back over her shoulder because she _knows _her terribly conservative parents are right behind her, watching her closely with their microscopic eyes and she can still hear the nagging voice of her mother in her head telling her she isn't allowed to have a boyfriend just yet because _have you seen the rate of teenage pregnancies these days? _and it's not like she's pining over him anyways—like what the _fuck_—that's preposterous and insane and silly and she doesn't even know him or anything.

It was just a small, accidental contact between their shoulders and even _if _she does kind of like the idea of his dazzling crimson eyes focusing solely on her for a millisecond of his day, it still doesn't mean anything because she doesn't know him and she's just being ridiculous and she has no idea why she's even obsessing over this to begin with.

Yet—

Despite all the efforts she puts into maintaining feign nonchalance, she can't help the sudden rush of giddiness that surged through her body causing her mouth to curve into a smile. At least, she thought, that if her godforsaken roommate were really to coerce her into admitting a crush, she'd have a nameless face in mind.

* * *

Mikan sets her last box on the floor and stretches her tired limbs. She looks around and purses her lips, reaches for her phone on her back pocket and scrolls for any unread messages. There aren't any. She taps the camera and snaps a picture of her boxes and other stuff laying haphazardly in one corner of the room.

"Oh. My. _God_"

She turns, startled by sudden exclamation, and found herself rather wishing she's only seeing things. This has got to be a joke.

Standing on the doorway is a pretty girl dressed in some black halter crop top and a neon green mini skirt, showing off flawless porcelain skin. Mikan feels a mixture of horror and respect upon seeing the girl not toppling over her own feet on her five inch heels, maneuvering the death contraption as if she's worn the pair since she came out of her mother's womb. She has her Prada round ornate sunglasses sitting on the top of her head and Mikan can faintly see a pair of dangling earrings hidden behind her shoulder length permed hair dyed in a weird shade of dark green. It reminded her of seaweeds.

Her delicate nose scrunches in distaste as she sashays into the room like some kind of a runway model, surveying the area with a pinched expression on her pretty face. Mikan wonders in fascination how long it takes for her to have her make up done every day. It seems like a lot of work.

The girl turns and finally notices her presence. Mikan wanted to offer her a friendly smile but deflated and opted to gaze at her indifferently instead after being subjected to the sour look that still adorned her completely made up face. She feels awkward, wishing she had her earphones so she wouldn't have to deal with high maintenance princess bubblegum. The girl takes out her phone, perfectly manicured fingernails tapping on the screen too loudly Mikan fears it might crack.

"Mommy, it's _horrible_!" the girl shrieks into her device. "You don't understand! My roommate is a _hippie_!"

There are at least four men, who are obviously hired, bringing in a few boxes and several green metallic luggage. Mikan steps aside, ignoring the hysterical girl and decided she wants nothing to do with her. She called her a _hippie_ as if being one is a crime. She snorts. She can see her father trying to make his way into the room in between the passing men, two bottles of water in hand.

"Where's mom?" she asks once her father is near enough to hear.

He shrugs and hands her a bottle. "She's having a bit of a reunion with her closest senior whom she spotted long the way. Heard her son will be starting here too."

"Oh," Mikan says absentmindedly, almost forgetting the fact that her mother is an alumna of this prestigious institution. "that's cool I guess."

"Roommate?" she hears her father ask after a while, tilting his head to where the sophisticated chick stood, still screaming bloody murder into her phone. Mikan feels slightly sorry for the person on the other line. Really, she should know how painful it is to be the receiving end of ear deafening shrills.

The brunette sighs, exasperated, and her dad laughs a booming sound, pulling her to his side. "Oh, sweetheart." he says, kissing her temple. "You'll live."

Mikan doubts she will.


	3. Chapter 3

The next time she sees _him_ is arbitrary.

Completely—

Absolutely—

Undeniably—

_Unnecessary_.

It's a Saturday and her roommate is having a bitch fit.

Mikan would normally listen to Sumire Shouda bitch about the most inconsequential things only because she finds rich people complain about being rich severely entertaining and _it's like witnessing Keeping Up With The Kardashians in real life, you know? _and also because two weeks into the term made her realize they can actually co-exist around each other without it ending in a verbal sparring, forming some kind of a bond founded on their mutual hatred for the evaluator behind _Window 1_, that and their weekly standing of watching _The Office_.

Except—

It's almost midterms week and she's lagging behind everyone else in her class and she still doesn't get how the formulas work and haven't completely gotten around the concepts just yet and constantly watching the stock market to later on report about it can be dreadfully dull and confusing and she has minor subjects to tend to and she just doesn't have the time to patiently indulge her roommate aggressively pace about the room as she gesticulates wildly in all directions. _So_—

She ends up almost brain dead sitting alone in a corner booth at a quiet café conveniently located somewhere around campus, her _struggling college student deprived of sleep_ starter pack laid haphazardly on her table which basically consists of a macbook pro with a dying battery, a half empty americano espresso that has gone stale, uncapped neon highlighters, notebooks with labels and sticky notes sticking out of its pages and obscenely thick reference materials about fucking _Basic Principles of Managerial Finance _which her devil spawn of a professor demanded they go through for next meeting's discussion—like what the actual _fuck_—she's obviously wallowing in misery and ready enough to _die _when she sees him.

She's only vaguely aware when he saunters in, given she'd been too busy coercing her three last brain cells to understand the mind numbing concepts and formulas of the different financial ratios because she's read that thick shit last night too, practically had each word memorized and jargon translated to _layman's_ term down to _her _term because she's quite convinced she's always a step behind everyone else yet—she still doesn't _get it_.

She leans further towards the book, absorbing each word carefully and slowly and she's almost there when she hears the bell on the entrance jingle merrily. She snaps out of her little bubble and her eyes automatically dart towards the door. She suddenly forgets her train of thought and feels her breath hitch.

_Of course_ it's got to be him.

And _of course_ she's got to be in her worst state ever when she sees him.

She quickly looks away, afraid that he might spot her with her unkempt hair and dark circles and just casually sporting this season's fashion for pure Shit and Comedy clothes she seem to wear so naturally, and discreetly continues to read her book except—

Her brain doesn't focus anymore.

She feels the familiar rush of adrenaline surge through her body, and she could hear nothing but the pounding of her heart in her ears.

Her head's flooded with the knowledge that he's _here _and her senses tingling with the awareness that he's _here_ and he's_ here _looking _so _impossibly fine in his faded maroon jumper like _why_ is he doing this to her?Existing _and_ looking so damn gorgeous at the same _fucking_ time. It's abominable and offending like she wish she'd somehow know he's racist and homophobic and a dumbass misogynist just so whatever this attraction she has for him will disperse into thin air and save her from completely developing unnecessaryfeelings for him because she honestly doesn't need this right now. She knows, with her nineteen years of existence and _not_ so limited experience in the field of love—she once had a thing with this boy in ninth grade and it was pretty damn serious—that it is merely an inconvenience and god, god, _god_, she's too old for this and has too much on her plate to be bothered by external forces such as a _crush. _

So—_no_.

She exhales, closes her eyes and draws in a deep, calming breath—this is utterly ridiculous—before she opens them again and almost fell off her seat when she sees him occupy the empty booth in front of her.

Oh my god _why_?

She grits her teeth and glances heavenwards, cursing whichever deity thought this arrangement is such a fantastic idea, and for a moment, carefully weighs her options. She considered clearing her desk and quietly escape to someplace else without the presence of any unwanted distraction. Except leaving would be contradicting herself after all her talk about being mature and levelheaded regarding this matter, that and her ego simply couldn't handle the idea of running away. She just said she's too old for this, didn't she?

She purses her lips and decides to ignore him instead. It was maddening how affected she is with his mere presence when he doesn't even know she _exists_. How he seemed so oblivious to her misery made her want to kill herself. So she straightens herself and clears out her mind before she determinedly resumes her previous endeavor. But even she knew the latter option was decidedly harder, especially with him sitting right in front her looking impossibly perfect.

She props an elbow on top of the table and cups her cheek with her palm. She turns a page and reads a certain line over and over again—forehead creasing in attempt to concentrate yet finds herself unable to process the concept as her eyes itched to steal a glance. Her resolve to ignore his presence wavers a bit.

She rolls her neck around, sits back and resolutely stares at her textbook. Her eyes are set on auto-pilot as it glosses through text after text, appearing to be quite engrossed with the book she's reading when her mind is in a state of absolute chaos. She shifts in her seat and glances at her open notebook warily. She purses her lips.

Everything suddenly feels so complicated.

She sighs in resignation and hangs her head, abruptly deciding to take a break—whatever that is. She's never going to get things done when she's _this_ distracted, she tells herself. It was a safe and reasonable conclusion.

She was going to regret this later. Probably. Most likely. _Obviously. _But she can't be bothered now. She's tired and ugly and she can always blame her idiotic tendency to the amount of caffeine she'd practically inhaled over the course of her stay. It was clouding her better judgment so she's hardly at fault like she's basically _intoxicated. _

She takes in a sharp breath and begrudgingly drags her eyes away from her notes and very subtly lands it on the man sitting on the booth in front of hers.

Their eyes meet and she almost chokes.

_Fuck_.

She quickly looks away, blushing furiously as she realize in abject horror how stupid and obvious she must have looked. _God_, why on earth would she sabotage herself like that?

She mentally berates herself for her lack of tack and runs a palm over her face, very much frustrated with her uncalled for illustration of what social suicide is like and decides that she's done enough foolishness for the day. She slams her laptop shut and abruptly rises from the table to leave. She gathers all her belongings into her bag, uncharacteristically aggressive, before slinging it over her shoulder quicker than she'd ever had before. One would think she's late to class for all her haste; cheeks flushed and pulse thumping wildly in her chest.

But of course, the cosmos hate her.

She insists it is mainly due to her haste in escaping the likeliness of committing further embarrassment unto herself and not on her general tendency to attract the worst luck that instead of cutting across the café and engulf herself around the awaiting embrace of freedom, she bumps into a solid body and she can hear the alarms in her head going off, ringing almost too loud in her ears and she doesn't realize this until she feels cold liquid trickle down the length of her arm, arising gooseflesh and seeping through the fabric of her slightly too large and overused band shirt she adores so much, and she panics as she stumbles, her feet sliding messily on the wet floor, but rather than crashing unto it, two arms caught her and it takes her a millisecond to see azure blue eyes staring down at her before a loud crashing sound of glasses breaking ricochets through every corner of the place.

_What the fuck_—

(10:32 am) _hotaru_

(10:32 am) _SOS!11!1_

(10:32 am) _i wnt to d word now _

(10:32 am) _like_

(10:33am) _its a proven fact i make a fool of myself in the morning way more than ppl do in a fucking life time_

(10:34 am) _aaaAAAAAAHHHHHHHHhhhh_

(10:34 am) _DKJFSDHAKFJHFIUFHAUHFKDSF_

(10:35 am) _this is so huMILIATINGGGGG_

(10:36 am) _istg!11!1!1_

(10:36 am) _like_

(10:36 am) _y does the universe hate me sm _

(10:38 am) _fuck my life_


	4. Chapter 4

There's a stain on the otherwise clean floor. A small, nearly unnoticeable, ugly blotch of what seemed to be a spillage of some sort of a condiment—or _something else_ entirely only Mikan wasn't exactly so adamant to venture the origin of—almost faded with signs of survival against numerous attempts of its removal.

It was bothering her, among other things.

"_Ugh_, don't even bother."

She looks up, startled, and sees the redhead from before. The events that had transpired after her mortifying momenthad been a blur, or at least she's somewhat desperately repressing the memory of it. Onlookers gaped at the disastrous scene before them, and she was vaguely aware of being shoved softly away from the peering eyes and led to the back. The crimson eyed boy she partly albeit secretly blames for the way her day had gradually depreciated to an epic proportion was boring holes at the back of her head and she barely registers the guy who had technically caused the whole thing mutter a series of apologies.

Suffice to say she'd been finding other things to settle her wandering attention on the moment she was away.

She was _not_, under any circumstance, going to cry _here_.

"What?" she blurts.

"The stain," the redhead jerks her head towards a particular area on the floor. "don't even bother getting rid of it. Believe me, we've tried everything but I guess it's here to stay." Misaki—the brunette squints at the name tag on her uniform—was carrying a folded shirt.

"Oh." the brunette says, slightly distracted by the awful feeling of her damp shirt sticking onto her like a second skin, before adding like an afterthought, "you're floor's still pretty though."

The redhead chuckles at that and Mikan feels like she's seen her before. "Thank you," she says once sober before handing over the shirt she'd been carrying and looks at the brunette apologetically. "It's all we've got that doesn't smell like sweat and shit apparently."

Mikan stifles a laugh at the mischievous look on Misaki's face and quickly shakes her head, promising her that it's quite alright. "Please, this is more than enough," she demurs and tries not to focus too much on the impending walk back to the dorms. She doesn't know how much tragedy she can take in a day.

* * *

It's half past midnight and Mikan Sakura is, _well_—

Mikan Sakura is trying not to _cry_.

It's midterms week and the university library is swarming with overworked college students who are either hoping to catch some much needed power naps in between exams or doing some last minute review, treading delicately on the verge of a mental breakdown. It is absolutely _hellish_.

Mikan opted to stay in her room, declining numerous group study invites from fellow financial management majors partly because she knew they'll gossip half the time, and she identified having to share worries and unconsciously pressure one another by disclosing the extent to which they have studied as a classic form of self-destruction (and mostly because she's still avoiding cafes like the fucking plague). God knows she's had enough of her anxiety skyrocketing whenever the memory of that one incident enters her head to do its own scheduled mental beating.

Now though—

She's hunched over her study desk in a way that would definitely result in an awful back pain come morning, pointedly ignoring her mother's disapproving voice in her head as Whitney Houston's _I Wanna Dance With Somebody_ blares through her earpods. Her complete set of pastel Stabilo highlighters are scattered messily around her table, one of her Pilot G-Tec pens teetering near the edge and the extra-large fries she ordered from the on-campus McDonald's on her way back from her _General Psychology_ exam had gone stale. She's constantly shifting from scanning her mind numbing books and barely readable printouts for reference to aggressively pressing the buttons on her scientific calculator in an attempt to solve the series of complex equations on fucking bond valuation using the formulas she sloppily wrote down on a torn page of her notebook. She presses the equal button and is a breadth away from severing her head when the calculator read _syntax error. _

She's literally one button away from fucking _Losing It_.

* * *

She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes and attempts to reassure herself that it's all going to be _fine. _

Glossing the fact that it was completely _bullshit_, the assurance did nothing to assuage her nerves. A quick scan at the questionnaire handed over to her was enough to conclude that she was utterly and royally fucked. She wills herself not to glance at her friend seated next to her.

She looks heavenward, to the classically vaulted ceilings of the lecture hall that always made her feel small.

They were intimidatingly huge with its fancy intricate design rich with history and shiny pitched floors so that those in the rear are sat higher than those at the front, allowing them to easily see the lecturer. The platform was wider and she loathes how distinct the distance between seats are and how bright the lights are, so extremely bright that she could almost see herself flunk her major with a horrifying, blinding clarity.

The air inside feels a little too stuffy which it's ridiculous because the room is obviously well ventilated, but then again she did sacrifice more than half of her allocated time to sleep just to study and still ended up with absolutely no fucking idea what to answer.

Faint noise of pages turning and hasty pressing of numbers on calculators drifts around the otherwise silent hall and Mikan anxiously shifts in her seat, the grip on her pen tightening quite nervously upon stumbling across series of items in the questionnaire that seems awfully foreign to her. The concepts and formulas she had drilled into her thinker disappearing within seconds and she feels sick. This is a fucking _nightmare_.

* * *

There was little to no discussion regarding the exam when it was finally over.

Anna Umenomiya, a fellow financial management major whom she shares a few minors with and befriended over a short awkward conversation about her striking bright pink hair and awesome hair dye choices which quickly spiraled down to a rather touchy subject of changing hair colors as a means to cope during an episode, had dragged her immediately out of the building. There was a silent agreement on not mentioning their impending doom.

"I'm craving for some pizza," Anna says once they were out of the stifling walls of the building. A cool breeze blows pass them and the trees planted neatly across the campus street rustles noisily with the wind, faint voices of their blockmates discussing exam related shit filling in the silence between them. They increase their pace, eager to get away from their correct answers and perfectly memorized formulas.

It's half past eight in the evening and there were barely cars left parked in the student parking lot. A few medicine upperclassmen students loitered in groups around kiosks by the edge of the soccer field, hardbound books and portable thermos with environmental awareness and straw ban and _save the turtles_ campaign stickers plastered on its smooth stainless surface scattered around the table, laughing boisterously at something someone said.

"Pizza sounds perfect."

They did not get pizza that night.

It was _anarchy. _Both girls eyed the disastrous scene warily. The only pizza place in the campus was annoyingly full of loud engineering students, taking gibberish over one another with their mouth full and disgustingly messy. There were ketchup packets on the floor with its contents splattered across the black and white tiles and tragically crushed pineapple tidbits scattered everywhere as if someone had taken it upon themselves to pursue a vendetta against _pineapples on pizzas_.How convenient_, truly_, for them to sit their exams the same night the business students did.

Take out was not an option too, for obvious reasons. Surely once they were back in their respective dorm rooms, they'd forgo dinner altogether and just cry themselves to sleep (not that sleep would easily come to them with all the _overthinking _that they were bound to do) because it had been an extremely stressful day and sadness is so much closer than it appears. So—_no_.

After their hasty retreat away from the ruckus of the bustling campus town, they found themselves standing right outside the dimly lit walkway across the closed university library, brain storming for possible places to have dinner in when a voice called for Anna's attention.

Both girls turned. Mikan eyed the incoming person in confusion, squinting at the dark just as Anna's face immediately lit up in recognition.

"Mochu!" Anna exclaims almost too brightly Mikan had to bite her tongue to avoid slyly voicing out her observation that she seemed awfully happy to see him.

The guy, very bald and very charming, slides next to Anna and Mikan feels awkward in their presence. She was teetering to the side, hoping that the bulletin board behind them would swallow her up and never spit her back. With all the bullshit that's been occurring recently in her life, disappearing from the face of the earth was the least worst that could happen. She can hear bits of their god awfully dull conversation about their mountaineering organization or whatever business they were mutually bound to and she shifts impatiently. She really doesn't care. She's tired and hungry and she doesn't know which one is eating away her patience that she swears if Anna doesn't end the talk anytime now, she was going to lose it.

She realizes, in hindsight, that she'd been often losing it for the past days.

"—this is Mikan by the way,"

Anna was gesturing towards her general direction and the brunette quickly snaps out of her retrieve.

The guy—_Mochu was it?_—was smiling at her, his dimples and twinkling eyes in full exposure and she almost forgets her manners. She waves her hand awkwardly because she's naturally awkward like that and offers a quiet _Hello_.

"I was just telling Mochu how we literally have no idea where to eat and he's invited us to join him and the guys—"

"Wha—_the guys?_"

"—and I thought it'd be great—"

"Oh I _bet _it is_._" Mikan mutters drily.

"—because they already have a table reserved and I heard the food there is great, you know—"

She purses her lips in a thin line.

"—and I also need to discuss some stuff with them, like, _Alice Mountaineering Society _stuff. You know how ridiculously busy we are next week and this could be my only chance. What do you think?" Anna looks at her pleadingly, her eyes had suspiciously gone wide along with an adorable pout to perfect the look of a manipulating wench.

Mikan decidedly was _not_ amused.

"_Fine_," she concedes with an eyeroll but only because she really doesn't have the energy to argue and just desperately want to get things over and done with and the expectant look on Mochu's face was also kind of pressuring that she felt the need to say yes.

She will later reflect on her decision and conclude that the cosmos definitely _abhor _her.

* * *

**A/N. _hi im back ive been busy processing my documents all the while searching for any possible job which really just means wasting away my life in isolation and a lot of 1975 lol anyways im trying to set an update sched or whatever. pls enjoy n tell me what yall think about mikan verging towards a breakdown every second of human interaction_**

_**also! ! ! ! thank u onigiri misaki for leaving a review! that was so sweet**_


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